The value of Houston light rail
A post about the value of passenger mile measures in determining a transit system’s effectiveness or level or service by Michael Lewyn at Planetizen brought to mind another post by Randal O’Toole a couple of months ago about the “failure” of Houston’s Main Street light rail line. In Randal’s view, construction of the line killed the growth in total passenger miles, and this coupled with an increase in bus operating costs despite an overall reduction in service spells failure for this venture.
This line of reasoning begins with a pretty big assumption – that passenger miles were going to keep growing at the same rate as the previous four years or so, and beginning construction of a light rail line is what choked off that growth. Randal says nothing about the reason for the growth during that time, or why it should have continued.
Furthermore, there actually was substantial growth in overall ridership and passenger miles in the first full year the light rail was open. There was a slight decrease in both the second year, which is troubling to be sure, but Randal doesn’t discuss why this may be – he simply assumes that, for whatever reason, it’s because of the light rail line. I can’t speak intelligently on the reason for the decrease, but it certainly isn’t clear to me that the light rail is to blame. Bus vehicle revenue miles decreased along with these – why did Metro reduce those? It’s another pertinent question that remains unanswered.
He also cites the fact that bus operating costs increased 42 percent from 2001 to 2006 despite a slight reduction in vehicle revenue miles. However, the National Transit Database shows an increase of about 28 percent nationwide for the same time period ($6.49 to $8.30 in operating costs per vehicle revenue mile). While Houston’s figure is a bit higher, the two are comparable, and this suggests that the increase in operating costs are mainly due to some factor or set of factors affecting all transit systems (increased fuel costs are likely at least partly to blame).
Additionally, it’s not clear what connection there would be between construction of a rail line and operating costs for bus services. Costs relating to construction shouldn’t even figure into operating costs.
And finally, Michael Lewyn’s post sums it up about passenger miles. Isn’t reducing passenger miles kind of the point? It’s been shown that transit users in central cities with good access to transit (including bus and rail) travel shorter distances than does anyone driving a car. One of the goals of such a line should be to more effectively and efficiently link places, and one way it could do that would be to require current and future transit users to travel fewer miles to get to where they’re going. A new light rail line through the heart of the city could certainly explain some of the reductions in passenger miles and VRM, if it helped many find shorter routes. Possibly more importantly, it has the potential to influence land use patterns to effectively link more people and their destinations in the future.
Light rail, especially if not done well, is no godsend for our cities. However, a more evenhanded discussion of the costs, benefits, and effects on overall mobility of this and any other proposed line is necessary to make the tough decisions about where to allocate federal funding and local tax dollars.
